Handbook at CCS addresses student disciplinary changes

    With school reopening next week, the board of Chase County Schools finalized revisions to this year’s student handbook as part of their regular meeting Tuesday.
    One of the major changes to the handbook will be the addition of a discipline point system that will be used when disciplinary action needs to be taken.
    High School Principal Mike Sorensen said this system has been used with success in other schools.
    He said the system provides clearly defined disciplinary violations and assigns a point-value to each violation and the type of disciplinary action to be taken.
    “It gives us a nice road map. It’s black and white. There’s no gray area,” he noted.
    A student accumulating 100 points on the scale will face suspension or expulsion.
    There are some automatic expulsion instances, such as bringing a gun to school.
    Parents may be notified based of the severity of the violation. Police will also be called for certain violations.
    In meeting with teachers, tardiness came up as a recurring issue that needs addressed.
    It’s something that Sorensen said he will emphasize when he meets with 7-12 students after school starts.
    Each tardy counts as eight points. Three tardies and a student is one-quarter of the way to suspension or expulsion, he noted.
    In other action, the board reduced the reading of a policy change from twice to once before its adoption.
    Any new policy still requires two readings before it can be adopted.
    Activities Director Troy Hauxwell reviewed the protocols they are taking to keep student athletes protected from COVID-19.
    He said action by Colorado to suspend their football and volleyball seasons this fall will result in some loss of contests at both the junior high and high school level.
    There’s still a bit of uncertainty in Nebraska about how schedules will be affected if a team can’t play due to COVID cases.
    It’s going to be a day-by-day thing, he said.